November 21, 2009

Unsolved in Indiania 1973

A crime that shocked the residents of Evansville occurred on January 18th, 1973.

Ann Kline, 26, was found brutally stabbed to death at the Old Vanderburgh County Courthouse in downtown Evansville.

Kline was a math teacher at the now closed Lockyear College of Business which was directly across the street from the Old Courthouse. She was loved by her students and didn’t have any known enemies.

Her body was found outside, under the Fifth Street entrance to the Old Vanderburgh County Courthouse.

She was lying in the basement entrance, where she couldn’t be easily seen. She had been stabbed 19 times in the chest and neck. Evansville Lieutenant Walter Kochersperger, who was a rookie officer back then, was one of the first on the scene.

It was his first homicide. About the crime, he says, “At times it didn’t look real, then other times it just looked horrific. You couldn’t believe what you saw, what one person did to another. The brutality of it, the senselessness of it.”

Evansville detectives recently got a break in the 35-year-old murder case. They think they know who killed an Evansville math teacher back in 1973, but still need your help.

Her killer has remained a mystery for a generation of police officers until they received one important tip.

Detective Tony Mayhew says, “One detail was that the killer had cut their hand during the stabbing and there was a second blood source that matched up with our suspect.”

Investigators plan to present the evidence they have to the prosecutor but they hope more people will come forward with what they know because investigators believe the suspect told several people.